


Equilibrium

by lookingskyward



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, mash up of show canon and comic canon, references to depression and suicide, specifically Punisher MAX: The Cell, strongly implied child death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-06
Updated: 2016-06-06
Packaged: 2018-07-12 07:36:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7092490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lookingskyward/pseuds/lookingskyward
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Frank struggles to cope.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Equilibrium

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [this](http://daredevilkink.dreamwidth.org/8423.html?thread=16691943#cmt16691943) Daredevil kinkmeme prompt (cleaned up, with some minor changes).

It’s not PTSD. 

The quacks and the shrinks can throw that diagnosis around all they want. They’ll blame the war because it’s easier to write off a soldier as a victim of trauma than to treat his actual problems. They’ll say that it’s natural to suffer from depression and directionless anger after the horrors he’s endured. He tells them they're wrong but no one will listen. Maria makes him attend group meetings for veterans also struggling to cope. The men and the women there, hands shaking, sometimes with tears on their cheeks, describe how the war has stained their nightmares like their blood has stained the earth. 

Frank dreams in red, too, just like them. The sleepless nights stack higher and higher and Maria doesn’t smile at him anymore. 

And he knows the taste of gun metal, just like them. 

But it’s not PTSD. 

 

 

He drinks and he drinks and he doesn’t go home again because home is where the heart is and his heart is six feet deep. He rents a shithole apartment and sits for hours staring at the gun on his nightstand. Sometimes he picks it up when he wants to feel the weight of it in his hands. Sleeping has become impossible because his dreams are drowning in _so much red_. The bullet in the chamber is a hidden mercy and he spends the endless nights with the muzzle resting comfortably between his teeth until he can decide what’s more important: revenge or death?

The bullet or the noose?

He asks God why he survived. Why his children, so young and innocent of sin, are dead while he’s been left behind with only his goddamn demons for company. If it’s some kind of sick joke – because he’s not laughing – but God doesn’t answer. 

Later, Frank will understand why.

 

 

Bodies pile up as he takes out his wrath upon the world but it does nothing to alleviate the hatred burning white-hot in his chest. He starts going by the Punisher, because someone needs to clean the streets of filth and Frank Castle is a dead man. Soon enough the Devil finds him, preaching about redemption – the irony is almost laughable – but he doesn’t listen because some people just aren’t meant for paradise. Frank begins making it a point to lay low on the nights when red haunts his shadow.

Those are the nights that the choice between death and revenge becomes much more difficult. When he can do nothing but hear his heart pounding in his ears while _Lisa’s beats its last in his arms and he can’t keep her guts in her body, his hands are shaking so badly and Maria looks up at him with agony and terror waring for dominance on her too pale face and there’s blood in his eyes and his boy has been splattered across the grass and the goddamn sun shines blindingly bright overhead – it’s a beautiful day – and he’s losing_ everything—

Frank finds relief in the cold comfort of his knife when it presses hard under his jaw. His fingers fall steady on the handle and he breathes in and out until the smell of blood is his own and all he can see is the faded white paint chipping from the walls. 

 

 

He only feels grim satisfaction as guilty blood pools at his feet and the Dragos are silenced for good. His family is avenged. His mission is over. His is a legacy soaked in blood, but the Castle family is finally free to find peace, and now he stands in the ruins of his war. Frank takes extra care to crush Gaucci’s skull beneath his boot when he steps over the body and seats himself upon the Godfather’s leather throne. Nothing to do now but wait for the end – and Frank’s good at waiting.

Soon enough he hears guards storming down the halls, hears them yelling orders at each other and banging their riot shields. Frank closes his eyes and thinks of dismantling and reassembling an M16; of watching his children play; of blowing the heads off mob thugs; of Maria’s tender smile that he'd give anything to see one last time. She’s gone to a place far beyond his reach but that’s okay because sinners like him don’t deserve to bask in the light. Two guards reach the cell at last and point their guns at him. 

Frank knows the taste of gun metal — and so he waits.

Before either of them can get off a shot, there’s a flash of red and suddenly Daredevil is standing in front of him. The two guards lay unconscious at his feet like worshippers bowing before an idol and he’s speaking but Frank can’t hear him. Doesn’t want to. He rises and makes to leave the cell. 

“Frank,” Daredevil says and grabs his arm as Frank walks past him. He sounds troubled but Frank doesn’t bother acknowledging it. Just shoulders his way past the hero and out of the cell.

 

 

As it turns out, Frank kind of likes the taste.


End file.
